Irons asserts that Jesus never spoke of God as “our Father” in a way which might include him with his disciples. This is a debatable conclusion, particularly in light of the Lord’s Prayer (“Our Father,” Matt. 6:9). Additionally, John 20:17 recalls Jesus saying, “I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.’” It seems that Jesus is not only including himself with the disciples in defining the Father, but also mentioning that they all share the same God! These texts further weaken Irons’s case for defining “Son of God” as he does.
I disagree with Irons’s assertion that Jesus’ claim to be Son of God “could not have been a mere messianic claim” since it brought forth the claim of blasphemy. This seems to me to be a failure to understand how the Jews interpreted Jesus and his claims, particularly within the Gospel of John, where Jesus could have been understood as a rebellious son taking prerogatives which are not rightfully his. One example Irons supplies is John 5:18 where Jesus calls God his own Father, making himself equal to God. It needs to be stated that within first century Judaism, a claim to sonship implied obedience and dependence, not equality (Deut 21:18; Sir 3.6–16; Philo, Conf. 63; Dec. 118). In other words, for a son to claim equality with one’s father in a manner which laid claim to the father’s unique prerogatives (thus dishonoring the father) would make the son into a rebellious son.56 If the Johannine ‘Jews’ understood Jesus as a rebellious son, who illegitimately claimed the right to break the Sabbath and give life, then they would have interpreted Jesus’ claim to messianship as a false claim. In their eyes, Jesus was a false Messiah. In order to counter this claim, Jesus stated, “the son can do nothing of himself, unless it is something he sees the Father doing” (John 5:19, 30). In other words, Jesus responded to this misunderstanding (a prevalent motif in the Fourth Gospel) by claiming to be an obedient son rather than a rebellious son.57 Along similar lines, Irons notes the episode where Jesus forgave sins as one which elicited the charge of blasphemy. The story continues to note that “God has given such authority to men” (Matt 9:8), a statement with which Jesus agrees (Matt 9:6). God has authorized Jesus to forgive sins (see John 20:23, where the disciples are similarly authorized). My question to Irons would be, how is Jesus authorized (by God) to forgive sins if he already possessed that right as the divine Creator?
I also object to Irons’s argument that, “If Jesus is a mere creature, how could he know the Father perfectly?” First of all, this is setting up a straw man and knocking it down. I do not think that the Bible described Jesus as a mere creature. He is the sinless, miraculously begotten, messianic king of the coming kingdom of God, who died for the sins of humanity. Secondly, the Bible never claims that a creature is unable to fully understand God. His argument seems confused as he admits that Jesus is ignorant of the eschatological day and hour (Matt 24:36; Mark 13:32). How can Jesus know the Father perfectly and at the same time be unaware of certain facts?58 Are these texts really teaching that Jesus is ontologically divine, coequal with the Father? I suggest that they are not. In order for coequality with the Father to logically stand, the Son must likewise be omniscient, which he clearly isn’t.
Another problem appears when Irons writes that “the Sonship of Christ is not something that began at some point in his earthly existence but in fact goes back to his preincarnate state.” I desire that Luke 1:35 get a fresh look, a text which highlights the spirit’s miracle as the precise reason for the begotten child being called the Son of God. Irons continues by citing John 1:1–3 as proof that the Word was a “divine being distinct from God.” In addition to again raising the question of monotheism, this definition of the Word goes beyond anything taught within the Hebrew Bible, where God’s davar is never described as a separate divine being.59 Irons brings a straightforward reading to the “came or descended from heaven” references, a reading which ignores the Jewish idiom (Jas 1:17; 3:15, 17), misses that Jesus’ “flesh” is what descended (John 6:51), and fails to grasp the figurative nature of the dialogue which is pervasive. Jesus unquestionably was sent from God (John 7:29), but so was John the Baptist (John 1:6). I invite Irons to interact with the argument which I detailed regarding John 8:58 and 17:5 in my response to Dixon, particularly where I demonstrated that Jews often spoke of preexistence within God’s plan. It is certainly true that Jesus was consecrated before his birth (John 10:36), but is this really so different than the beginning of Jeremiah’s commissioning (Jer 1:5)?
Irons further argues that John 16:28 is indicative of three phases of Jesus’ existence. However, this suggestion fails to take seriously the chiastic structure of the verse:
I came forth from the Father (A)
and have come into the world (B)
I am leaving the world again (B1)
and going to the Father (A1)
This seems, rather than teaching three phases, to indicate two phases. At the end of this section, he suggests that these disputed passages in John’s Gospel need to be interpreted as “straightforward vignettes.” Yet I feel the need to ask, “straightforward to whom?” To us as twenty-first century Westerners, who are nearly two millennia detached from the culture, context, idioms, and customs of the first-century-Jewish world? Does not Jesus characteristically speak in metaphor, parable, and typology within the Fourth Gospel? I respectfully suggest that the Judaism out of which the Fourth Gospel was composed needs to be accounted for before we assume that such statements need to be read with such wooden literalism.
Irons objects to a theology of two stages of Christology which eliminates preexistence. He argues this reconstruction would result in a human being exalted to a position of honor which is inconsistent with his “ontological nature.” In other words, Irons assumes that Jesus has to be ontologically divine in order to make sense of his exaltation. In response, I wish to bring to the discussion texts within Judaism where human figures are described as greatly exalted (without any reservation given by the authors). The Testament of Abraham depicts a glorified human figure (revealed to be Adam) seated upon a golden throne overseeing the judgment of souls (T. Abr. 11.4–12). The same document depicts Abel, a human judge, exalted to a position of enthronement after his death (T. Ab. 12.4–11; 13.1–4). Fourth Ezra has Ezra receiving the promise of exaltation to live with God’s son (4 Ezra 14.9). The second-century-BCE document, the Exagōgē of Ezekiel the Tragedian, drawing on the vision of the throne chariot in Ezek 1, portrays Moses as a man seated upon a heavenly throne ruling and governing humanity (Ezek. Trag. 68–86). Some of the speculation about the location of the elusive Elijah crystallized in Sirach, who describes him as exalted (“taken up”) without dying (Sir 48:9–10). Similarly, the book of 1 Enoch testifies about the speculation of the figure by the same name who was promoted to heaven apart from death (1 Enoch 12.4). Are Adam, Abel, Ezra, Moses, and Enoch being given divine honors representing their ontological nature? I would be eager to hear how Irons feels about these passages, about which James Dunn summarizes, “this raises the possibility that even within the monotheistic Judaism of the first century that thought of a great human figure being exalted to heavenly status, and thus receiving honor due to such a one, was not so far from being admissible.”60 Irons is making a rather bold claim to assert that the (omnipotent) Father is unable to exalt a human being.
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